Wednesday, 8 September 2010

Haaretz published an interesting piece on the impact of the economic boycott, bemoaning the fact that the Chilean parliament has just passed support for an economic boycott, in addition to moves by pension and investment funds in Sweden and Norway to divest from Israeli defence industry firm Elbit Systems.

Laughably the growing influence of the BDS movement is put down to an alliance between the far left and Islamists - apparently the Islam side provides the money and the lefties the troops. What a load of nonsense.

The Haaretz journalist twists the obvious fact that it is Israel's actions itself that is driving the movement forward, with the spurious argument that if only Israel had not been a 'light unto nations' in the first place it may have avoided 'disappointing' those supporters now.

There's another boycott, an international one, that's gaining momentum - an economic boycott. Last week the Chilean parliament decided to adopt the boycott of Israeli products made in the settlements, at the behest of the Palestinian Authority, which imposed a boycott on such products several months ago.

In September 2009, Norway's finance minister announced that a major government pension fund was selling its shares in Elbit Systems because of that company's role in building the separation fence. In March, a major Swedish investment fund said it would eschew Elbit Systems shares on the same grounds. Last month the Norwegian pension fund announced that it was selling its holdings in Africa Israel and in its subsidiary Danya Cebus because of their involvement in constructing settlements in the occupied territories.

The sums involved are not large, but their international significance is huge. Boycotts by governments gives a boost to boycotts by non-government bodies around the world...

...David Ben-Gurion called us a light unto the nations and we stood tall and said, we, little David, would stand strong and righteous against the great evil Goliath.

The world appreciated that message and even, according to the foreign press, enabled us to develop the atom bomb in order to prevent a second Holocaust.

But then came the occupation, which turned us into the evil Goliath, the cruel oppressor, a darkness on the nations. And now we are paying the price of presenting ourselves as righteous and causing disappointment: boycott. more